


Team Spirit

by sanjart



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, M/M, Pre-Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-01
Updated: 2008-07-01
Packaged: 2018-09-30 12:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10162793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanjart/pseuds/sanjart
Summary: Harry is searching for his true form.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [HP Fandom](http://fanlore.org/wiki/HP_Fandom_\(archive\)), which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [HP Fandom collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hpfandom/profile).

A/N: Hi! This is my very first fic so I would greatly appreciate any comments. It has been beta'd (thank you Negani and Nathaniel *bows*), any remaining mistakes are my own.  
The story is post-HBP AU.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and plots from the Harry Potterverse belong to JK Rowling and various publishing companies and movie studios. I am not making any money from this.

Team Spirit

“… James Potter!”

“OI!”

Ron’s yell in his ear brought him back to Hogwarts, Scotland, UK, Earth.

“What?! I was concentrating like you said, Hermione.” It ticked him off the way they were looking at him with that exasperated disapproval as if they had a million better things to do than waiting around for him to concentrate.

“No, Harry. You’re missing the point. Concentrating does not equal zoning out. Focus, for Merlin’s sake!”

Gods, these after curfew Animagus lessons were starting to eerily resemble Snape’s Occlumnecy training. And they gave just about as much results as well. Ron and Hermione had completed their transformations weeks ago, an endless string of frustrating unproductive nights ago. How gleeful Snape would be if he could see Potter’s son now, stuck in his scrawny human James-like-with-Lily’s-eyes un-Harry form. He tried and tried to meld with the image of the bloody lion he was supposed to shift into but all his efforts had as much effect as trying to connect two magnets of the same pole. Incompatible.

“Forget it. Let’s go down to the kitchens for a midnight snack and call it a night.” Ron declared walking through the door, Hermione huffed and followed while Harry sighed and stared at himself in the mirror. Incompatible. With his true but ill-fated House, with his actual but ill-fitting Gryffindor House, with Cho, Ginny, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, with his name, with the Killing Curse. 

For some reason whenever he dared to contemplate his life Snape and Draco Malfoy appeared in his minds eye. The two loathsome treacherous cowards would sit contentedly in a comfortable sitting room of one of their manors, happy smirks, glasses of firewhisky and all, discussing his fucked up life, jeers, cackles and derisive snorts echoing in their crystal goblets, thundering in his ears. The former Professor and year mate of his daymare were carefree and happy in their sneering snarling sort of way. And in the depths of the conscious mind were the light of reason rarely shines he was happy for them and himself. At least someone was having fun in these days of dwindling light and discord; at least in someone’s life he was bringing laughter instead of danger, despair and death. He snorted to himself as he was catching up with his friends, the Three Ds of Harry Potter. Yes, in his freakish way he was happy for his imaginary Snape and Malfoy – he preferred thinking about them having a laugh at his expense than acting out the more sinister scenarios the Order reports alluded to. 

§§§~§§§ 

Due to the meditation techniques he was practicing for the Animagus transformation and the harsh reality he was dealing with every day Harry found himself losing focus on his surroundings at the few times his attention was not needed for one crisis or another. No matter how minute every situation was a crisis these days. He understood people were nervous with the war raging just beyond the castle walls but their need to transfer the general fear and urgency to meeting essay length requirements and NEWT revision was driving him up the many Hogwarts’s walls. 

He was sitting with the Griffindors, waiting for the evening meal to appear. He’d wandered off into a state of being where blinking became optional and the sight before his eyes overlapped with the pictures his mind conjured up from its depths. Snape’s empty chair stigmatised forever or at least for now, lowered heads at the Slytherin table. He so wanted to genuinely scowl at someone but Malfoy was far away, _not_ gloating over Harry’s fate. 

He was rising and falling on the waves of sound, the hum of distant conversations whispering in his ear, when an unidentified flying object shot at him from the Ravenclaw table. The hand of the Seeker dutifully intercepted it and Harry found himself in The Graveyard clutching a Remembrall in his hand. 

§§§~§§§

“Harry James Potter.”

He watched as the red smoke in the Remembrall cleared – ah, yes, constant vigilance, that’s what he’d forgotten! – then focused on the red eyes of Tom Riddle. 

“Tom Marvolo Riddle. How disgusting to see you again.”

The world was in sharp focus now. The washed out colours of dusk, the deep black Death Eaters’ cloaks, the chime carried by the evening breeze as the church clock struck eight, the rushed beats of his heart. He dropped the globe to the ground and his wand in his hand. A patronising chuckle. 

“You won’t be needing that, boy.”

Anger flared in his chest and he glared at his would-be-murderer with all his might, thus never sensing the one who immobilised him from behind and snatched his wand from now frozen fingers. Shocked and enraged Harry stared into the silver eyes of Draco Malfoy, who appeared before him, heavily violating his personal space. 

Finally, he scowled freely and ferociously as he locked eyes with the serious and haunted gaze of his would-be-friend. Malfoy, with the haughty scowl firmly in place, slowly lifted Harry’s wand until it gently lay horizontally between his bony fingers in their line of sight. The trio seemed to hover in time then disgust distorted a handsome face and disbelief widened sad eyes, just as terror froze the serpent’s heart and a silent scream cracked his mind. Skin, wood, pressure. Pressure, pressure … Snap. Silence, finality; _I can’t believe you did that, I can’t believe I did that_ … Violent cheers erupted and life went on while they swallowed tears. With his gaze still anchored in Harry’s eyes he took blind steps back then turned in a swirl of robes and dropped to his knees before Lord Voldemort, silently offering the broken wand with a bowed head. 

The Dark Lord embarked on a victorious speech of supremacy but Harry was in too much of a turmoil to process what he was saying. Shaken and oddly detached, he watched Draco take his place next to Snape, who was in the honourable spot of closest servitude on Riddle’s right. 

The observed look of crippling humiliation met by hard acceptance and endurance in the black eyes of the Head of House brought upon an epiphany that at last solved Harry Potter’s life-long identity crisis. From day 566 of his existence this had been his life. And these were the people with whom he truly shared it. The phoenix wand had been broken and with it his bond to both Tom and Albus. First name basis between closest enemies. He focused his now clear eyes on Snape’s, which softened to silent acknowledgement, then shifted his gaze to Draco. He was less subtle as myriad of expressions crossed his features – corrosive misery, surprise, hesitant hope then defeated anguish. “… not use the Killing Curse but annihilate you with the Curse of Light. Quite fitting, I think.” A wink – sheer astonishment. 

Unbearably white light shot from Voldemort’s wand. Everyone flinched away blinded but before they could shield their eyes, darkness was back with a vengeance. They blinked away the white dots dancing in their fields of vision and at very long last saw the so desired sight or lack thereof – Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, was no more and all was well. Where he had stood now gaped a straight nearly 200 yards long line of missing tombstones. Deafening roars of victory, vaporised flesh and marble and above it all the maniacal laugh of a megalomaniac who finally got his way. One by one, they silently Disapparated, and all that was left were the rapidly fading echoes in the night. 

§§§~§§§

Dawn broke into a day barely brighter than the fleeing night. The lonely graveyard was once again visited by figures cloaked in black, but this time only two came. Why? To burry the past or perhaps the future, to say goodbye to a found boy or to their own names behind the masks, to ensure they never forget or to try and forget the Before, to bemoan his death or their survival?  
Here, right here, everything had ended and the end had begun. They glared at the vibrant grass completely unaffected by the sizzling force of destruction that had raged mere inched above it. The green glared back. They glanced at each other and peered closer. Amidst the blades of grass lay a very still black snake. Under the watchful black eyes a pair of trembling hands reached down and gently lifted the cold body. Snape waved his wand over the serpent for several long moments then snorted, muttered, “Only you” and finished his quiet chanting with “Finite Incantatem.” The snake’s smooth skin immediately rippled with the contractions of powerful muscles along the entire body. He wrapped himself around Draco’s warm arm and lifted his head. Draco tried to scowl at another of Harry’s super-narrow logic-defying escapes from the throat of Death, but only managed to grin and role his eyes at the cuddling snake. Harry transformed back to his human form smirking smugly, his eyes shining brightly with satisfaction and gazed into the grey eyes that were the key to his destruction and salvation. 

“If you two are quite finished making eyes at each other, I suggest we leave this cursed place.” Snape sneered at the boys, but there was a new light hidden in his customary glare. Two unrepentant smirks later, the three Slytherins Disapparated with a distinct sense of espirit de corps.

The End


End file.
